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Playing the Holy Fool The ’s message for Stalin in Shostakovich’s 9th Symphony

Julian Roberts examines the composer’s struggle with Soviet disapproval and how he chose the bassoon to convey it.

Alexander Lazarev

Gradually the spell was taking hold of paralysed into remembering the huge me. I thought: ’freedom… to record suffering that the war victory had cost, Julian Roberts unknown viola concertos for the world’s transfixed by one lone voice. Then in the viola fetishists!’ 5th movement they slip back into It was perhaps my greatest privilege ordinary forgetful life, albeit rather during the 12 years I was Principal Then the extraordinariness took over. hysterical, unsettled and disturbed. Bassoon of the Royal Scottish National If there’s anywhere you don’t have two Orchestra to have participated in playing minutes to spare it’s at a railway station Here is the context. In 1945 consecutively all 15 of Shostakovich’s where time, or the lack of it, rules Shostakovich was expected to produce symphonies under maestro Alexander everything. How we can curse if our some fitting music to celebrate the Lazarev, performed as a series over train is delayed for two minutes! Allies’ World War 2 victory. But, two years. Lazarev shared with us some Although Glasgow Central station in further than that, he faced every of the insights into this music that can some ways could be said to resemble a composer’s challenge with a ninth only come from being born into, and cathedral in the scale and magnificence symphony: to create a comparable living and breathing the Russian of its architecture, normally it is very masterpiece to Beethoven’s 9th. musical tradition. un-cathedral like, with swarms of After his momentous 7th and 8th people rushing about their business. Symphonies, what could In all symphonic music, there’s nothing Yet here we all were, a big crowd of possibly follow? quite like this. A solo movement – a unsuspecting travellers forced to stop and cadenza! – in the middle of a think, to pause and remember. What is the thing that we fear the most? symphony… for bassoon! What is To play badly at a concert? A reed not as this all about? And come to that, Very strangely a wave of feeling seemed good as we wanted? Not to be asked what is the symphony about? to pass around, and yes, a stifled sniffing back? Maybe these or worse: economic came from nearby. The Last Post insecurity, emotional crises, family One grey autumn day a few years ago sounded, banners were raised. No trains misfortunes, physical problems, I was quite mundanely on my way to seemed to have come or gone, there had death of a loved one? What did work. The train came into Glasgow been no announcements. The utter Shostakovich fear most? He feared Central station, and I knew I had a few incongruity of the whole situation being shot dead at any time of day or moments to jump into a shop there to get knocked me for six. The Central Station night, at the whim of Stalin. a paper to read for the bus journey to had for a short time become the Dundee where we were to record some cathedral, madly dashing travellers a It is impossible for us to begin to unknown viola concertos. But there, congregation, while for an altar and comprehend the level of terror that between me and the shop, was a quite cross we had the clock above us was normality in Stalin’s Russia. unusual sight. A motionless crowd, reminding us of the sacrifice we were People of every walk of life could at any a man speaking slowly and solemnly, making: two minutes. time disappear, to labour camps or to banners held by people in uniforms. death squads. Artists, poets, composers Darn! I wouldn’t be able to get It was a while before it hit me that this were particularly vulnerable. Their work anything to read! is exactly what Shostakovich was had to please the authorities, and if it creating in that bassoon movement. could be seen as critical of the party Then I realised: 11 o’clock, the 11th In its massive stillness, time is or Stalin himself, there might be a night November. ‘They gave their lives for our temporarily completely suspended. visit from the police, and they would freedom’. Two minutes of stillness: In the utter incongruity, Shostakovich’s simply vanish. Shostakovich, being one had I got time or would I miss the bus? partygoers and merrymakers are of the nation’s foremost musicians,

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was under Stalin’s close scrutiny. and in the end he composed the 9th in A pointer to the irony of the opening The dictator was in many ways a man just a few weeks. movement that Lazarev talked to us of culture: a regular at the ; he about is the ’s constantly possessed a fine tenor voice; a devotee of The BBC’s ‘Discovering Music’ presenter interrupting and repeated declamatory music and reportedly a recording of his Stephen Johnson tells a joke rather rising 4th, as if announcing a motif – favourite pianist was playing on his well that goes something like this. but there’s nothing to follow. gramophone as he died. ‘Why is so much Russian music so sad Shostakovich, he said, often used the and in the minor key.’ The response: trombone to represent Stalin: plenty of ‘Ah, but in Russia we reserve the bombast but in this case nothing to say, major key for inexpressible sadness!’ no follow through. Of all Shostakovich’s symphonies this is the one most overtly and simply in the When it came to the 4th movement, major key. And that is the point: sadness what Lazarev showed me was that this is is, in the circumstances, inexpressible. meant to be very slow – painfully or It can only be allowed to be felt and almost horribly so – both from the stated by the joke instrument of the perspective of the player’s stamina and orchestra, the bassoon. And even then, for the listener. Although it is marked the interruption of the prevailing mood is cadenza it is not to be played with the so appallingly tragic, so over the top, rhythmic freedom that the word normally so grotesquely out of place that the implies. Indeed the score has the mark listener can’t be sure Shostakovich isn’t ‘quaver equals quaver sempre’ where the sending up that too. This especially as the quavers first appear. It’s rather – like at Joseph Stalin bassoon’s lament seamlessly becomes the the railway station remembrance dance theme of the last movement, ceremony – as though time itself is Through all his life, until the dictator’s as if saying, ‘only joking’. Indeed, temporarily suspended. death, Shostakovich walked the tightrope to most people this is Shostakovich’s of paying lip service to the party line – ‘joke symphony’. After perplexing Lazarev said that in this movement, more for which he was expected to produce audiences for a couple of years the than anywhere else, Shostakovich ‘positive’ music – and his own artistic symphony, and all his music, was banned revealed his heart. To Shostakovich the integrity. After the notorious front page by the authorities, evidently finding the bassoon represented the human voice, of Pravda denunciation of his opera joke no longer so funny. meaning ‘the voice of humanity’. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (almost That is also the feeling of the opening of certainly penned by Stalin himself) the last movement of the 8th Symphony in 1936, and while at the youthful when, after all the tragedy, the bassoon height of his powers (he was 29) , sets off on a simple folk-like tune he withdrew his 4th Symphony from its in C major. imminent first performance, and it was not played until 1961. Listen to it to Following Lazarev’s approach to hear what he truly wanted to write executing the cadenza, I found all sorts about real life in Russia at the time. of images coming to mind. Indeed the After this, the 5th Symphony saw him whole symphony presents itself to me as restored to party acceptance; he had a drama, much more programmatically learned to write in a musical language than any of his other works, much in the that was ambivalent enough to fool same way as Beethoven’s 6th is so the authorities. To me, this is what clearly depicting those country scenes. the 9th is all about: multiple layers of The first movement shows general ironic ambivalence resulting from a life boisterous merrymaking, the second lived between a rock and a hard place. a lullaby of inebriation and gentle slumber, the third is the morning after His dilemma was most acute now in the night before with everyone waking Dimitri Shostakovich 1945. After years of enormous human up to more festivities and clowning losses and massive suffering (listen to the (the dancing reminding me of 7th and 8th Symphonies), with a peace The key may be E flat major but the piece the bear in Stravinsky’s Petrushka). deal of uncertain prospects, a victory is a send up of the whole notion of war At the rehearsals for the first symphony was required to please the victory music, and of the very idea of performance Shostakovich was heard party and Stalin, and yet needing to be emulating Beethoven’s last symphonic saying: ‘The Circus, the circus’. something worthy of Beethoven’s 9th to masterpiece: therefore an ‘anti-9th’. The Then a rising tide of anxiety seems to boot. In fact he told friends that he was jollity is banal: indeed the banality and sweep over everyone. It is as though composing something huge with chorus, triviality is as much in the 25-minutes something terrible has been discovered: factory sirens and locomotive whistles; length of the work, less than half that of someone who won’t celebrate sketches were produced, but abandoned, most of his other symphonies. and dance.

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The brass announce in unison a music has. For some, it is too repeated three times on the 3rd and 4th frightening fanfare – they sound like embarrassing. For just a few moments bar. The solo ends with another great a harshly neon-lit firing squad preparing the monumental scale, the silence, sigh, extinguished in a short note of to shoot – and the cymbal sounds on the feeling of vast wastelands of resolution – like the dropped the command ‘fire’. The double dotted frozen tundra that Shostakovich of Petroushka’s death – though here no fanfare suggests the baroque style, conjures in his other symphonies, one notices in the gathering string sound the notation perhaps of a recitative should be present in those simple as they take up the theme. from an oratorio. The cymbal reminds sustained major chords. us of a pantomime magic trick, Gradually the party atmosphere goes of letting the djinn out of the bottle. Not least we should feel uncomfortable sour and evaporates. The music becomes Reality is suspended, time stands still. because of the nature of the writing for restless and unsettled, twice coming to a It is a Don Giovanni moment, the bassoon. The statement seems to questioning momentary halt. The only when the Commendatore comes to life require a more powerful sounding way out is increasing freneticism, and in and a shiver of horror runs through the instrument of more heroic quality, a the end it is as though everyone just runs audience for the mocking Don. bigger range of tone and expression. away. The abrupt and not quite The bassoon will tell the truth of the war The music’s most heartfelt phrases are satisfactory end – no triumphant blazing and what the victory has cost. In the like screams, written at the very top of tonic key coda here – always seems to tradition of the Court Jester or Holy Fool, the instrument’s range. They are not take audiences by surprise. The victory only the orchestral joker is allowed to tell comfortable to play; they are extreme party has bombed, the state celebration the truth. There is a ring of Old Testament and they should sound extreme. has disintegrated into nothing. prophet about him, and of the tragic They may risk accident; a high note clown in I Pagliacci. may not speak and that risk should be The composer once said: ‘If they cut off part of it. But in a way this frailty is both hands, I will compose music At the start the bassoon plays a falling 4th also the point: at these occasions it is anyway, holding the pen in my teeth!’ (the first two notes of the symphony), the down to one, maybe frail or thinly During the Cold War, western critics used inversion of the trombone’s gesture in voiced man or priest, to pronounce the to denigrate Shostakovich as morally the first movement – as if saying ‘here is immensely meaningful words. weak, one who sacrificed his creative your answer, Stalin: there is something to individuality in order to survive the say’ (see Postscript). Then there are two And then the magic continues. oppressive demands of the Soviet system. excruciatingly painful, dissonant, There is a poignant moment of complete laments. The first is delivered over a silence before the bassoon seemingly Just imagine being the bassoonist playing sustained F major 1st inversion relents, slipping down the semitone that symphony at its first performance, in (in violas and double basses only, from A to A flat. The music is now front of Stalin and the State entourage, a providing a thinner, rather more strained metrical, in time, conducted. The new symphony written to praise the sounding string texture, perhaps strings respond, moving to A flat minor: Soviet and Allied war victory. That implying a hostile crowd). Following at last it seems there might be cadenza is the most monumental act of another brass fanfare, the second lament reconciliation. The strings stop defiance of authority, and could have is over a sustained A major 1st inversion. and the bassoon is left holding a been the composer’s suicide note if things This key is about as far away as possible questioning, almost pleading C flat. had turned out badly. As it was, his music from the movement’s home key of Bb Will there be understanding for the was banned from 1948 until after Stalin’s minor, and is the tritone (historically the point of view expressed? Alas no: death in 1953. ‘devil’s interval’) to the symphony’s key there is silence. There can be no of E flat. There isn’t pathos however, relenting and the bassoon must join in nor sentiment; pity is not invited. It is the official celebrations, and dance too. Postscript simply a statement of complete horror, No alternative is available. not only about the war but of Stalin’s Probably it is coincidence, or perhaps a reign of terror, each note representing the Just maybe this moment of extraordinary subconscious association in the thousands of dead, tens of thousands psychodrama represents how composer’s mind: the first two notes injured and millions of ordinary people’s Shostakovich managed his life-long (that falling 4th) of the solo cadenza are suffering. The falling 4ths feature artistic dilemma. In this moment of the same as those for first bassoon in bar throughout – the most powerful the last, managed schizophrenia, of controlled 113 of the slow movement of Beethoven’s Eb to Bb – against that A major triad. bi-polar disorder, the last note of the Eroica Symphony, music written for a 4th movement – a long groan on low fallen leader. The bassoon interrupts the Like the experience at the station, C flat (lower than any of the music so far) funeral march to declaim something new, and how we all feel during the – becomes the beginning of the theme of but here injecting a mood of optimism, Remembrance Day two minutes of the last movement. albeit one that by bar 150 is shown silence, we should feel deeply to be a foolish hope, unable to uncomfortable during this music This theme is a bitter dance of state- overcome tragedy. (particularly the player!) As though enforced jollity. Note the tritone on time has stopped. This is the quality that the first beat of the theme (A in the the Russian tradition of performing this bassoon over E flat major chord)

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Finally, two excerpts from Testimony , There wasn’t even a paltry dedication. others know nothing about. But he The Memoirs of Dimitri Shostakovich (as It was just music, which Stalin didn’t tells the world about his insights in an related to and edited by Solomon Volkov) : understand very well and was intentionally paradoxical way, in of dubious content… I couldn’t write code. He plays the fool, while actually ‘It was very unfortunate, the business an apotheosis to Stalin, I simply being a persistent exposer of with the 9th. I mean, I know that the couldn’t. I knew what I was in for evil and injustice.’ blow was inevitable, but perhaps it when I wrote the 9th… and my would have landed later, or less stubbornness cost me dearly.’ harshly, if not for the Ninth Symphony … When my 9th was Volkov writes in the book: performed, Stalin was incensed. ‘Shostakovich became the second He was deeply offended, because great yurodive composer. The Yurodivy there was no chorus, no soloists. is a Russian religious phenomenon… And no apotheosis. he has the gift to see and hear what

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